O'Reilly Auto Parts to open in Cape

Business Today

Cape Girardeau will be home to the newest O'Reilly Auto Parts Store, according to Tom Kelsey, commercial broker with Lorimont Place Ltd. who handled the lease transaction.

Kelsey said the Springfield, Mo.-based parts distributor finalized a long-term lease on the 12,000- square-foot building at 370 N. Kingshighway near the Broadway intersection.

The 47-year-old O'Reilly company is one of the top five auto parts chains in the country with 1,170 stores and is projecting $1.7 billion in total sales for 2004. Currently O'Reilly has stores in Malden, Sikeston, Kennett, Dexter and Poplar Bluff in Southeast Missouri.

The location originally housed a Save-A-Lot and Ward's Big Star Grocery Store in years past. The space was recently vacated by Freedom Rock.

Kelsey said Capaha Bank purchased the 27,500-square-foot development, renamed it Capaha Center, and originally intended to occupy the 12,000-square-foot Freedom Rock building and have his Lorimont company lease the balance of the space.

With the O'Reilly lease and the discovery of some structural problems with the space formerly occupied by Super-D Drugs, it was decided to raze that section of the development and build a new Capaha branch bank on the site nearest the Kingshighway and Broadway intersection.

Construction on the new bank branch should begin within the next 90 days. The new O'Reilly Auto Parts Store should open by December and employ 10 to 15 workers.